


The Innocent Flower

by clearasblue



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Fluff, Garden Centre AU, M/M, Slice of Life, background honorshipping, silver has a ponytail and it's adorable, what are tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearasblue/pseuds/clearasblue
Summary: "Bear welcome in your eye,Your hand, your tongue.Look like th' innocent flower,But be the serpent under ’t."When one of the plants at Ravenwell Garden Centre comes in with a rare plant disease, it's up to Crystal, a plant specialist, to get to the bottom of this. But who's behind this? And will Silver finally muster up the courage to talk to the cute guy who works in the café?





	The Innocent Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Silver gets called to a staff meeting at the Caballero Garden Centre, he finds out that the plants are getting infected by a mysterious disease.

“Thank you for shopping at Caballero Garden Centre. Was everything alright for you today?” Silver asked for the hundredth time that day, as he stood at the till of the aforementioned garden centre. Honestly, it had been a welcome surprise when Blue had came home and told him that she'd found him a summer job at her work. Silver wasn't the kind of person to just sit around for two months, waiting for his final year of school to reconvene. But it was only his first day, and – as he helped the elderly couple at the checkout to put the four-pack of mixed flower seeds into a paper bag – he couldn't help but wish he'd turned his sister down. It had been stupidly busy; he didn't know there were so many people interested in ceramic bird baths and gardening supplies. But it was a bank holiday, and to the majority of the country (it seemed), that means it's time to go to a garden centre. “Would you like a receipt?” he asked, to the dismissal of the couple. As they walked away, Silver ground his teeth annoyedly. True, nobody ever wanted the receipt. But _he_ would have at least been a _bit_ more polite about it. 

Now that the couple had gone, Silver leaned over the desk and peered around the centre. It wasn't especially large; half of the building was simple brick, and the other half was glass. Silver's till was in the shaded section of the brick, which he was thankful for – as a rule, he was that person who was always freezing, but the summer sun was especially warm this year. Still looking around, Silver caught sight of the dark-haired guy who worked in the café. What was his name, again? He'd not really been paying attention when Green had brought him around and introduced the guy to them all. He seemed kinda cute, but he was probably really loud. Silver couldn't stand talkative people as a rule. It was why he tried to stay away from the staff room, to be honest. No offence to Blue, but the prospect of talking with her friends when he could be doing other things didn't exactly thrill him. Then again, he didn't even know the guy's name, but they'd been communicating through glares all morning. Well, Silver had been the one doing the glaring, he supposed.

The guy in the café must have caught sight of his staring, because he leant on the desk and waved over to him, smirking. Silver rolled his eyes, giving him a glare as the guy pointed him out to one of his customers. The redhead could only imagine what he was saying; could it be an insult? He looked away, his hands flitting up to his short ponytail to feel it. Honestly, he felt ridiculous with his hair up, but he had to have it like that for health and safety reasons, so... His moment of self-doubt was quickly halted, however, by the sound of the bell on the till being rung. Silver started, turning around suddenly and mumbling an apology. “S-sorry about that...uh, thank you for shopping at- Blue, what do you want?”

Indeed, it was Blue standing in front of him, smiling coyly. “Hey, Silver! Did I interrupt your daydreaming?"

Silver blinked. "Uhh...no, it's fine. I was just...looking around. For customers, you know?"

"...uh-huh," Blue agreed. "Right. That's funny. I thought you were looking over at Gold, but I guess I was mistaken, huh?"

“Gold?” Silver repeated, looking back over at the café to see the same guy serving an wheelchair-bound, elderly man with thick white eyebrows. “Is that his name?”

Blue grinned. "So you  _were_ looking at him!" She paused in her triumph, bringing her hand up to twist a lock of her chocolate-coloured hair around her finger. "I didn't know you were into guys, Silver."

The boy spluttered, but Blue was not deterred. “I'm pretty sure he's single, you know. Want me to ask him out for you?"

Embarrassed and flustered, abashed and disconcerted, Silver took a long, drawn-out breath as he composed himself. “Thank you for the offer, Blue,” he eventually responded, “but I'm perfectly fine without your matchmaking, thank you.”

The brunette looked momentarily dismayed. “Fine, fine. I can tell when I'm not wanted.” She hung her head dejectedly for a few seconds, and made as though she were going to walk away, but she soon returned to her cheery self. “Oh, before I forget, there's a meeting being held in the staff room at lunch. Very important. You'd better be there, or Red will eat you alive! Probably.” And she skipped away without a second thought.

Silver sighed. Of  _course_ there was a staff meeting. What a wonderful day this was turning out to be.

Over at the serving desk in the café, Silver could see Gold trying to direct the elderly man away from the kitchens and towards the tables. The man was waving his stick at the boy, and seemed to be shouting something like 'Why don't  _you_ 'chill out'?'. On the plus side, at least Silver was having a better time than him.

 

* * *

 

It was lunch time, and Silver had done as Blue had commanded - gone to the staff room. It had took him long enough to find it; of course, he'd been there when Red had showed him around, but he'd tried to block that memory out after Red had found Green in there on his phone, instead of on his shift, and had pushed him into the kitchenette so hard he'd given the boy a limp. Even going in the staff room after that had felt a bit awkward, not helped by everyone else already being in there, but he'd sat down in a corner and nobody had bothered him too much. It was alright, truth be told. Everybody else was talking amongst themselves. Silver supposed they'd known each other for a while. The quiet was nice. Calming. Until-

"Hey!" a voice greeted, sitting next to him. "You're Silver, right?"

Silver, having started at the noise and therefore not being in the best of moods, opened his mouth to respond with some snarky comment - probably something mild like "Who's asking?", but he turned his head to see who, indeed,  _was_ asking, and stopped.

It was Gold.

"Yeah...that's me," Silver managed, not knowing what to do. He wasn't used to this sort of thing! People didn't just go up to him and start talking. He looked over to Blue, who'd paused in her argument with Green about something or other to smile at him in a sort of 'yes this is my doing' way. Rolling his eyes at her, he turned back to Gold. "And, you're Gold, right?"

"You betcha!" Gold affirmed. "Man, it's good to see another guy my age around here!"

"I doubt I'm your age," Silver retorted. "I'm still in school. Looks like you've been here for a while."

"Nah, I left school early," Gold explained. "Mom's the head chef, and she wanted me to carry on the 'family business'. I don't mind, though. Anyway, I just know we're gonna be best friends!" He reached behind Silver, putting an arm around him.

Silver stiffened. He wanted to push Gold's arm away, but he found himself unable to, and he managed to force out a hesitant "sure". Gold looked at him questioningly, but before he could question Silver, they both heard somebody clearing their throat, and they looked towards the table in the middle of the room, where somebody was standing. Instead of wearing the long aprons that the rest of them wore, the guy was wearing a zip-up fleece jacket and a red cap.

"Thanks for coming to the meeting, everyone," he began, looking around at everyone with a broad smile.  "I know it's been a while since our last meeting, so there are a few things we need to run through."

As the guy went through the list, Silver started to listen less and less. Hearing a 'psst' from his side, he turned to Gold, who whispered "Hey, you should pay attention to this. Red's gets kinda annoyed if you don't get everything the first time. Green still hasn't learned." He signalled to the brunette, who was playing with his phone. Red had noticed, and was glancing at him occasionally while talking, frowning each time he did so.

"And, finally," he continued, his eyes firmly on Green, "we have something serious to discuss." Seeing his eye-line, Blue nudged Green, who looked at her annoyedly. She signalled for him to look at Red, who looked ready to kill the boy. "Obviously, every summer, we get our shipments of winter plants. When I was moving these to the supply room, though, I found that one of the plants looked like _this_."

At this, Red held up a laminated photo of some plant leaves. The leaves were a faded dark green, but each of the leaves had a large orange stain on them. "This isn't like anything I've ever seen before," Red explained. "This disease is...weird. It doesn't look like any sort of communicable disease, and I have no idea what it is, or how to treat it."

"So, what are we going to do?" Green interjected, looking over to Red with wide eyes.

"Well, we've gotta work out what's wrong with it," Red replied. "Since he left me his business card after that seminar I attended-" ("We were all there," Whitney offered, only to receive a sharp elbow to the stomach by Falkner) "-I've asked Professor Elm at New Bark University to see if he has anything that matches in his database, and I've sent away for a testing kit in the mail. But that isn't going to be enough. We don't know how quickly this is going to spread."

"You're right," Falkner interjected suddenly. "We're going to have to call in a specialist."

"Way ahead of you, Falkner," Red responded, beaming. "I've called in the Professor's assistant. She's worked with plants for years, so I'm sure she'll be able to help. She should be arriving this afternoon, with Yellow. And I want you all to be nice to her! Don't scare her off. That means you, Gold."

Everyone turned to Gold, who sheepishly smiled. "Gotcha," he replied.

 

* * *

 

It was half past three in the afternoon, and Falkner was bored out of his mind. He wasn't entirely sure what his job involved, truth be told. He'd been told that he was being employed as a security guard, but people aren't going to steal, say, a porcelain bird bath that looks like a frog, or a garden hose, or - heaven forbid -  a box of perennial seed mix.  So, somehow (though not even he was sure how), he'd ended up manning the survey stall near the exit. Pushing his fringe out of his eyes, he leaned against the wall, sighing. He glanced over at the tills, but nobody was there. Honestly, did nobody want to win 10000 in shopping vouchers? ...then again, he wasn't too enthusiastic about the survey, either, but this was what he was getting paid for...

Seeing the glass sliding doors open out of the corner of his eye, he looked up to see a young couple entering the shop: a man and a woman. The woman was slim, with dark hair that was just visible through the zigzag-patterned shawl she wore. She had on dark sunglasses, and a loose dress in a golden-yellow fabric that reached her knees.The man, on the other hand, was muscular, with short blonde hair that had been meticulously styled into a comb-over. He wore a bright scarlet-coloured tracksuit, and a sweatband across his forehead. They looked uneasy, and Falkner could see them muttering to each other as they entered the garden centre.

"Excuse me," Falkner called out to them, seeing them jump in surprise before turning to him. "Are you two alright? You look a bit lost."

The woman looked shocked for a split second, before quickly wearing an expression of amusement as she laughed a polished laugh. "Of course we're alright!" she responded. "We're just passing through the area, and we thought we might stop by the café for a spot of lunch. I trust it's open?"

Falkner nodded. "It should be. It only closes at half five. Isn't it a bit late for lunch, though?"

The woman looked as though she'd swallowed a fly. She muttered to herself for a moment, as though trying to think of a response, but the man interjected. "We've been travelling for a while. Only just got off the motorway. I'm Su...llivan. Sullivan. And this is, uh-

"Sarah," the woman interjected. "Well, this has been lovely, but we'd better get off to the café. Speak to you soon!" And, with that, the curious pair walked away. As they did so, Falkner noted that one of them had dropped a card of some kind on the floor.

"Hey, did one of you two drop this?" he questioned, picking it up and reading it. It looked like a business card; black, with a big red 'R' on the front. On the back, it said--

The card was suddenly pulled from his hands, and he looked up in surprise to see the woman glaring at him. Almost instantly, her frown morphed into a light smile. "Ever so sorry!" she offered. "That's my husband's business card. He sells...uhh, antiques. The 'R' stands for 'Royal', because of the heritage!" She laughed her polished laugh, though it sounded a little weak. The man was looking at her curiously, but he soon started laughing with her when she elbowed him in the ribs. "Anyway, we'll be seeing you!" And the two ran away in the opposite direction, quick as a flash.

"That was weird..." Falkner murmured to himself.

"What was weird?" a voice behind him called out suddenly.

Falkner jumped, before recognising the voice and turning around with a small smile. "Yellow, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Oh! Sorry..." Yellow apologised quickly, putting her long, blonde hair up into a ponytail. "I'm also sorry it took us so long to get here! I'm usually really good at driving..." (Falkner noted silently that she was not, and this happened every time, but she was the only member of staff other than Gold's mom that had a driving license. God forbid the day she gives him a lift to a date.)

"It's just as well I've got GPS on my Pokégear, otherwise we'd have been driving around for a lot longer!" another female voice added. Falkner looked behind his boss to see a girl around his age stood there. She wore her dark hair in two low pigtails, and her long, white lab coat hung off of her like a dress. "I'm Crystal," the girl greeted, holding out a hand to Falkner.

"Are you the specialist Red mentioned?" he questioned, shaking her hand.

Crystal nodded. "There are thousands of diseases on Professor Elm's database. It could take a while for him to find a match, so he suggested to Red that I come here to try and identify the problem myself!"

"Well," Falkner responded, pulling his hand away, "we're keeping the specimen in the offices for now so that it doesn't spread. Come on, I'll take you there!"

Falkner motioned to a door on the wall adjacent to the main entrance. Walking over to it, he took a lanyard out of his apron pocket, scanned it against the black rectangle next to the door, and waited for the beep. "It's the third door on the right," he explained, pushing the door open for the three to enter through.

 

* * *

 

"Welcome to the Caballero Corner! What would you like to order?" Gold questioned the couple stood before him. He'd assumed that there wouldn't be any other customers at this time, since people tended to stop coming at around three o'clock. Still, a job was a job, and customers meant money! The couple had hung around near the entrance to the café for a while - which would be understandable, since a lot of people get unsure about whether the café's open or not. Gold had suggested time and again that they get a sign for that, but apparently there was nowhere to put one. Anyway, the thing that was odd about this couple was that they seemed to be talking on the phone the whole time that they were stood there. When they finally ended the call, Gold overheard the woman calling the person on the other end 'boss'. A bank holiday Monday was an odd time to be receiving calls from your boss - but then, Gold hadn't had a real job before, so he wasn't sure how that sort of thing was dealt with in other professions.

"Hmm, I think I'll have the salmon terrine," the lady replied, almost mechanically. "How about you, Sullivan?"

"I'd like the cottage pie," the man - Sullivan, it seemed - stated. "Tell the chef that I'd like  _shiploads of gravy_ , would you?" He emphasised it strangely, but Gold didn't pay this any attention, as he was jotting down their orders.

"You got it! The drinks counter's further down that way," Gold responded, pointing to a girl with short, bright pink pigtails who waved enthusiastically at the couple.

They nodded, taking their trays further down. Gold walked into the kitchen, where he saw that most of the chefs had gone home. Gold sighed exasperatedly. They did this every Monday, and they seemed to think it was okay. Shaking his head, Gold walked over to the head chef and slid the piece of notepaper towards him. "Hey, can you make these orders? I think we're gonna close up after these. We're not in a busy area of town, so I doubt people are gonna come after this time."

The chef nodded, and Gold went to walk away, before adding "Oh! And the guy said he wanted 'shiploads' of gravy with the cottage pie. You can do that, right?" At this, the chef froze momentarily, before donning a slightly scary grin and nodding sharply.

"Great!" Gold responded, leaving the kitchen. "Thanks, Koga!"

 

* * *

 

"Well, this is the office that we're keeping the specimen in," Falkner explained, letting the two girls into the staff room and pointing to a plastic box in the centre of the table. "It's inside that container over there. As I said, we didn't feel safe keeping it near the other plants."

"Completely understandable," Crystal noted. "If you don't know what the disease is, you don't want it to be spreading... Well, I've got my testing kit here, so I'll see what I can do." She drew a chair, and took out a small, rectangular box from her bag. "These kits contain monoclonal antibodies," she explained, taking out a swab. "We usually use these kits to test for fungal pathogens like Botrytis, but since none of the staff here can identify it, it's not going to be any use reading, say, a manual on this. If I can take a sample, I can take it back to Professor Elm for testing." She took a petri dish from her bag, wiped the swab onto some sort of jelly and taped the lid on top. "It's a shame I wasn't able to sterilise it completely, but I'm sure it will do the job."

Standing up, Crys took her Pokégear out of her bag, dialled a number, and held it to her ear. "Hello, Professor? It's Crys! I just wanted to tell you that-"

_"Crys! It's awful!"_

"What do you mean, Professor?" she questioned, looking at Falkner and Yellow confusedly. "What's awful? What happened?"

_"The data card that I keep my disease recognition software on! It's gone missing!"_

 

* * *

 

_"And you're sure this is where the boss told us to go, Sabrina?"_

_"...of course I am, Surge. This is where Koga went undercover. You gave the code word, and now - assuming that bumbling fool gave him the message - all we have to do is wait for our 'orders'."_

_Thump...thump...thump..._

_"Salmon tureen?"_

_"That's mine, thank you."_

_"And cottage pie, with 'shiploads of gravy'?"_

_"Mine."_

_"Of course. Enjoy your meals."_

_Thump...thump...thump..._

_"Is it in there?"_

_"It sure is."_

_"Well, now that we have Professor Elm's data card, there's no way they're going to be able to match that disease. And then, when the centre has no more plants to sell, they'll be forced to close!"_

_"And then?"_

_"And then, we make our move."_

_"...this cottage pie really is good, you know."_

_"...yeah, I kinda regret ordering the terrine, now."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of three chapters in this AU! I hope you enjoyed the first one!


End file.
